Traveling and Eating Disorder Recovery

The late, great Anthony Bourdain said something about travel that I’d like to share:

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

Travel, and its relationship to eating disorder recovery, has been on my mind recently, and with good reason: I have had two really big trips this winter. I recently spent a month in Puerto Rico, and am currently finishing up a month in Thailand (one more week to go!).

The reason why I took these trips is because I hate the winter, which totally sucks where I live, in Philadelphia. I figured, as a freelance writer, I could just pick up my laptop and go work in some warmer climates.

However, I feel that I’ve gotten so much more from the experience than just warm weather.

Travel changes you, sometimes in ways that aren’t immediately evident. In terms of disordered eating, here are just a few observations:

The act of traveling itself requires taking a stand with your eating disorder.

It begins before you even get there! Just getting on a plane or a bus or a train can be terrifying to a disordered eater.

For one thing, it shakes up meal times. Adhering to “appropriate” timing for meals is a residual disordered behavior for me when I get stressed. I’ve spoken to enough other disordered eaters to know that stringency about mealtimes is fairly common with others, too.

So, when I found myself on a 15 hour flight to Asia, I had a real desire to control my intake, to eat by the clock so that I could make sure when I was eating stayed true to my “appropriate” intervals between meals in local time where I had flown from. It got very confusing when every few hours, flight attendants would circulate with meal offerings.

I won’t lie: I wasn’t able to eat every time they brought food. But I did try my hardest to assess whether or not I really was hungry, and I think I did ok.

Even if I stressed out, though, I’m proud of myself. I actually know other disordered eaters who won’t cross time zones for this very reason!

You may not have access to “safe” foods.

At home, it’s easy to stick to my “safety” foods if I want to. I live about a mile from Whole Foods, and I can pretty much make sure that I’m stocked up on things that I feel OK eating at all times.

When traveling, you don’t always have this luxury.

Particularly when you’re in a foreign country, it’s not always easy to ask about the ingredients in a dish, or to ask for substitutions, etc.

This can be a beautiful thing, though, because it requires a bit of surrender. For me, there’s actually something freeing in being able to order something overseas and just trust the chef rather than trying to mold it into a safety food through special ordering or omissions etc.

I love this because it forces me to challenge my behaviors with food and urges me to try new things. It can be scary at times, but I usually find that I’m pretty ok with it.

You might have to eat with others more frequently.

Something that I despised at the height of my eating disorder and still sometimes struggle with today is eating with others. Oh, for a variety of reasons. I’m scared that I’ll eat too much, I’m scared that I won’t eat enough, I’m scared that someone will think I eat like a pig, I’m scared I will lose control.

Guess what? That’s exactly why it’s a great thing to eat with others as frequently as possible.

I won’t lie: when I eat with others, I still consider it a fact finding mission in some ways, where I’m learning how normal eaters approach food. Usually, they don’t automatically divide the plate into quadrants or halves like I do, creating a “safe” portion from the start. Sometimes they finish their plate, sometimes they don’t. I guess what I learn overall from eating with others is that it’s ok to eat a little differently every time, depending on your hunger. To some, that might sound painfully obvious, but to a disordered eater, this can be a pretty radical idea.

You’ll be forced out of your comfort zone (and that’s a good thing)

Oh, I’m a creature of routine. At home, I have my routines with yoga, with food, with walks, with work. And when I travel, they get thrown out the window. Part of me hates it. But part of me loves it, too.

What’s interesting is that I basically still achieve or do the same things on a daily basis, but the schedule is a bit looser when I travel. For instance, at home I start working pretty early, but in Puerto Rico I found that the mornings were more for beach time, and I preferred to work in the afternoon. In Thailand, I’m finding the same.

Instead of fighting it, I go with it. Because what I have realized is that the harder I fight to hold on to routines or structure, the more I suffer.

You’ll get clues as to who you really are.

One of the things that fascinates me about travel is how no matter where I go, I’m still me. Once again, this might sound painfully obvious, but it’s also pretty profound. It’s kind of an amazing feeling to realize that in the scope of the world, I’m a mere speck, yet whether I’m in Philadelphia, Puerto Rico, Seattle, Los Angeles, or Thailand, certain things remain the same.

For example: I love the ritual of coffee in the morning. I love doing Ashtanga yoga. I love taking long walks and getting lost. I love the taste of pineapple, avocado, and apples (not necessarily all at once). I’m a sucker for a great sunrise or sunset.

When I observe these things in myself over and over across time and geographical borders, I start to feel pretty certain that they’re really true parts of me, these things that remain the same. There’s a comfort in recognizing these truths about yourself, because it helps give you a sense of self possession and helps make you more secure in what you want, what you like, and what you need.

Anyhow, I suppose this was kind of a rambling post but the main thing I wanted to share here is that while traveling can be challenging when you have an eating disorder and can even be challenging when you’re in the advanced stages of recovery, it can also be a magical experience that helps you break free of the old behaviors that might still be holding you back.

What have been your experiences with travel, good or bad? Leave a comment or send me a message at jessieunicornmoore@gmail.com!

Weighing In

Note: Trigger warning. This post mentions specific numbers. If you are at a point in recovery where this will be triggering, I do not suggest reading this post.

So guess what you guys, I weighed myself today.

I’m not going to be coy about it, I’m going to tell you exactly what I weighed. 105 pounds.

At 5’2” this puts me in the “normal” weight range for my height. The normal weight range for a 5-foot-2 female, according to THE INTERNET, is 104 to 131 pounds.

I specifically went out to weigh myself for the purposes of this post, and I will tell you why.

1. Because I just got my period.

Yea, let’s talk about periods! Mine has been MIA for the past year, and has been intermittent at best for the past 2 decades. For 7 years I didn’t get it at all at the height of my anorexia.

This has always bothered me because I know that a healthy cycle is a marker of health, and that when you are underweight it’s one of the first things to go as your body is like “Ok I’m not getting enough fuel here so I’m gonna cut out some of those pesky things like reproductive functions and keeping you warm and stuff”.

So, since I got my period, I wanted to get a rough idea of the weight at which my body felt comfortable letting all systems work normally again.

2. Because I was underweight before.

I won’t lie: last year I had a pretty significant relapse into restriction. My weight went down to about 95 pounds through a combination of cutting out all carbs, alcohol, and sugar. I am not going to lie: I liked having that extremely lean body. I liked the way clothes looked, I liked how prominent my veins looked. I liked how tiny my breasts were. But it wasn’t enough. I went down further—my lowest weight was 91. I started to look emaciated.

Was it worth it? No, friends, because while I had this body that pleased me aesthetically I was freaking zero fun to eat with and I was thinking about food FUCKING CONSTANTLY. If you had a conversation with me at any point between say March and October of last year, I apologize if I didn’t seem like I was fully paying attention but I WAS HUNGRY. Not always physically, because I was eating a high fat diet. But emotionally, yes.

Plus, an ex boyfriend who I am still close with said that I looked “creepy”. You know, I believe he was right.

(art by my awesome sister - Handsome Girl Designs)

3. Because I was curious.

So, in the recent months I actually and really stopped giving a fuck about what I eat. When I initially stopped tracking food and calories etc I was scared as fuck, like it would be a never ending process of just getting bigger and bigger until every single person in my life was talking behind my back about how I let myself go.

So, I knew I had gained weight, and it was very scary at first, but then it kind of leveled out. I had maybe three or four articles of clothing that I had to get rid of because they became too tight. Like, this size of size 00 shorts. I had to have a little talk with myself about that one, like “seriously, Jessie? Size 00 isn’t even a real people size, and there is no reason to need to fit into it.”

But really, most of my clothes pretty much still fit fine, and I kind of like my jeans to be tight anyway, because, you know, butts.

But I also know that I’ve gained more than weight. I’ve also stopped thinking about food every second of the day. I’ve also stopped avoiding situations where there might be food (yes, I used to do this). I’m still a freaking baby about the cold but it doesn’t seem to cut through me quite as bad as it did when I was underweight.

I also have more energy to lift weights and ride my bike now now, which are things I have realized I really enjoy doing. So I’m sure that that also plays into the weight gain because muscle weighs more than fat.

But moreover, perhaps the most profound change is that I have lost a lot of fear. Like, I had this huge fear of gaining weight and once I let myself, all that I experienced were good things.

ANYWHO long ways of saying, I have been feeling very good in my body recently, so I was curious how much I weighed so I could have an idea of what feels like a pretty optimal weight. 105, ok, cool.

My weight also makes me sad, and here’s why.

So, I was torturing myself to stay at about 95 pounds, like literally ruining my own life and letting it affect relationships etc. And all that it took to actually be happy and live a life that is so freaking superior to that one was about 10 pounds. 10 pounds to not be insane, to have my hair not fall out, to get my period, to not be obsessed with calorie tracking, etc.

What makes me sad is not that I gained the weight. What makes me sad is that I don’t know what took me so long.

Isn’t weighing yourself bad tho?

Weighing oneself is controversial in eating disorder recovery. For a long time I refused to do it. But now, I’ve decided not to care.

I think for me, it was a memory of childhood that made me decide that it was stupid to let a number on the scale have power over me.

When I was in elementary school, I have this memory of every kid in the class being weighed. And after we were weighed everyone would be like “how much do you weigh?”. And we compared, but then maybe five minutes later we were on to the next thing. Weight was nothing more than a novelty that became boring in mere minutes.

Maybe I’m not quite there yet, but I’d like to be able to return to that place—where weight really doesn’t matter.

What has been your experience with weighing yourself?

The Unbearable Heaviness of Eating

I have been trying to gain weight for my own health. Look at me, being a good example of eating disorder recovery!

But now I have put on a few pounds, and I am freaking the fuck out. So yeah, look at me, the worst-ever face of eating disorder recovery.

Let me tell you a little story.

About a year ago, I decided that I needed to change my relationship with food, because I felt that my website CakeSpy had in fact been keeping me in a disordered eating state of mind. And you know what…it was. I was basically surviving on sugar, but still restricting enough so that my body maintained a certain weight and look.

So I toned down sugar big time, and began eating an extremely high fat diet. At that time, fat was all I seemed to want. I was putting butter in coffee. Eating the separated oil on top of the peanut butter jar with a spoon. Cooking eggs in lard, with pork belly. I called it my “reverse cleanse”. Where most people “eat clean” and drink juice on a cleanse, I was replenishing the fat and protein my body so clearly and so badly wanted.

God, I felt amazing at first. I felt strong, I felt healthy, I was eating so many good nourishing calories. I was eating more calories than I had since…probably ever. I started to get a regular period for the first time in years.

But then something happened. As you may have heard, a lot of people who go on high fat diets such as the ketogenic diet will lose weight.

I lost weight eating a high fat diet. And I liked it. Probably a little too much. And that’s where things started to go wrong.

I started to have an active fear and aversion to carbohydrates. If I ordered a burger and took it out of the bun before eating, even the smallest crumb that stuck to the meat would scare me. The idea of ever taking a bite of a brownie again seemed impossible, the worst thing ever. Obviously carbs had been the problem the whole time!

Then my hair started falling out. Not in alarming clumps, but when I would brush my hair, I would see lots of strands coming out. Then I lost my period again. Sorry if it’s TMI, but I haven’t had a period since last March or so.

I realized that what had started as a good thing—replenishing the fats and protein I needed—had quickly morphed into an eating disorder relapse. Because while I was eating enough technically, I was restricting entire food groups.

I realized that once again, I would need to make a change.

I humbly began to incorporate more foods.

I cried the first time I ate ice cream again. Not out of happiness. Out of fear.

I cried the first time I ate bread again. Once again. Fear. Pizza, ditto.

But I kept on incorporating foods again. It got easier. I gained a little weight, but it was ok because I still fit into a “safe” size of clothing.

That’s when I discovered a variety of recovery resources including Tabitha Farrar and Kayla Rose Kotecki . If you are in recovery and you haven’t heard of them, I highly suggest them.

In watching their videos and reading their blog posts, I felt like they were directly calling me out on my shit.

What I realized is that for years and years, I have been living in a state of quasi-recovery or half-assed recovery. Basically, I was letting myself eat, but really, secretly, I was most comfortable if I just kind of stayed right at this weight that was just above alarmingly underweight but still on the low side of normal weight.

I found a facebook group dedicated to Hypothalamic Amenorrhea support. That’s a long and serious sounding name but basically it’s a group of women who have lost their period due to restricting food, over-exercising, or a combination. Basically, a group of women just like me.

Joining the group was a powerful sort of reinforcement and gave me the courage to actually begin to eat more. I post in the group a lot, and often it’s things like “is this ok?”. Is it ok that I want to eat the separated oil on top of the peanut butter jar with a spoon? Is it ok that I’m hungry for a cookie even though I had bread for breakfast? Is it ok that I don’t want to hang out with people who are thinner than me?

I feel silly asking things like that, but often enough, I find out I am not the only one.

Still, gaining weight. Actually gaining weight, to the point that my clothes are tight. That part is hard.

To tell you the truth, I am kind of freaking out.

Because I have to face so many things. Including:

Not being special. I hate admitting this, but being the smallest person in the room is something that for some reason feels important to me. It makes me feel special. If I am not the smallest person in the room. If I don’t automatically order the smallest size. Am I still special?

The pain of being a woman. Since I don’t get my period, it’s easy to kind of shrug and say “I can’t have babies, I don’t get my period”. If I gain weight and get my period again, it opens up an emotional minefield. If I can actually physically have a baby, what if the problem is that I am not good or lovable enough for someone to want to have a baby with me? That really hurt to write, but it’s a real fear.

Loss of control. The world is a fucking scary place that feels totally insane and out of control sometimes. People that you love can leave you. Jobs can go away. You can break bones or die in car accidents. An eating disorder gives you a false sense of security in that it tricks you into thinking you can control things. And quite frankly, you can have a degree of control over your body. By limiting what you eat and exercising a ton, you can keep your body at a certain shape. But it’s not without its high price in terms of isolation, rules, and potential for bodily harm and health and emotional issues. By giving up this control, I have to face and accept the idea that sometimes life doesn’t seem to have a rhyme or reason.

Fear of being judged. This feels so stupid to write. But I have had this constant fear lately that people are looking at me and thinking that I got fat. I have noticed that I have been tending to do yoga at home, alone, because I feel ashamed. I also get very triggered when I hear people in yoga talking about how they haven’t eaten yet that day or things of that nature.

Yet there are also so many benefits. Including:

Better sleep. When I am underweight, I have a real problem with sleep. I can get to sleep, but I wake up at like 4am with this weird wired energy. Now that I am eating more, I am sleeping til a leisurely 6:30 or sometimes even later. It makes me feel so much more normal.

Not so cold. If you’ve never suffered from anorexia (and I hope you have not) then you probably don’t quite understand the true awfulness of being cold while being underweight. It’s not just about not liking the cold. The cold physically causes pain in your bones. It is unbearable. Gaining weight, I still don’t like the cold very much at all. But I can tolerate it better.

Not in jail. When I restrict, I feel like I am in jail. I can only eat at certain times. I am limited in what I can eat and how much of it I can eat. I might be starving, but I will literally wait for the clock to click over to certain “safe” times when I can eat. Now, I am challenging that. Hungry at 11:51? No way am I going to wait til 12:01 to eat. I am going to eat now.

Also, in eating a sufficient amount, I am aware that there are entire hours where I don’t even think of food. As it turns out, when you’re chronically malnourished, you tend to think about food ALL. THE. TIME. And not in a pleasant way.

Not that it matters, but the amount of weight I have gained isn’t much. Actually, I’m pretty sure that most people probably wouldn’t even notice a difference. But to me it feels immense. My body is foreign to me. It jiggles. I need to wear a bra, otherwise my boobs feel strange and swing-y. It feels like there is too much of me.

A friend of mine emailed me and said something so beautiful recently. Here’s what she said.

“You’re a huge woman. Take up your space. The space you deserve.”

I try to hold on to this, like a mantra.

You’ve heard the adage “you are what you eat”. Literally, this is true. But emotionally, we are a whole fucking lot more than what we eat. And I want the freedom to be the true me, but free of the emotional chains that come with restricted eating.

OK, it’s 11:51 am and I’m hungry now, not ten minutes from now. Gotta eat.

Love, Jessie

But I'm Good at It.

I like to be good at things.

In my experience, this kind of goes with the territory for people with restrictive eating disorders. As a general rule, anorexics tend to be extremely high achievers and massively competitive mofos.

For example…

While I was heavily restricting, I always wanted to be the one who had eaten the least, and who had achieved the most, be it miles walked for the day, professional achievements, etc. I wanted to be the smallest person in the room, the one that made people shake their heads and say “how on earth does she do it all, and fit into a size zero?”

Of course, there was literally NOBODY who was doing this. Truthfully, most non-disordered eaters really don’t fucking care how much you eat or what size you wear.

But I did, and to a certain degree, I guess I still do.

I won’t lie: one of the hardest parts about eating disorder recovery is giving up how GOOD I was at restricting.

While I have made a commitment to no longer actively restrict, I still struggle with the desire/need to be good at things.

Really, it’s a thing with me and has been for some time:

I gravitate toward yoga because I am flexible. I enjoy being noticed as a writer/illustrator. I like the validation of social media likes, sometimes too much. I like it when people have crushes on me because it makes me feel desirable.

I mean, it’s all connected to the eating disorder. These are all ways that I’m trying to validate myself and feel good about the space I take up in the world. It’s me trying to be special.

Recovering from a restrictive eating disorder means gaining weight. For me, even a few pounds changed everything. I’m no longer the smallest one in the room. I know this is a normal thing. Of course in this great wide world, some people will be bigger and others will be smaller. But in some ways it feels like the most terrible and fearsome thing in the world.

Without my eating disorder, am I really special anymore?

Without restricting, there’s the threat of something truly terrible: being average.

An eating disorder gives you the illusion of safety because it gives you structure. In a way, you believe that you have superpowers. The problem is that it’s not true. All that you’re doing with the structure of the eating disorder is isolating yourself from really feeling anything at all.

Without the eating disorder, you realize that you’re human and all of a sudden you’re subject to regular human things like rejection and pain.

There’s a beauty to this. It forces you to be more open and vulnerable and to actually, you know, feel.

But it’s also fucking hard, because you’ve lost the superficial armor that the eating disordered mindset tricked you into thinking you had. It makes the ground feel shaky at all times.

Without my eating disorder, I often feel like I’m living this sticky, uncomfortable place. The grey zone. I feel things. I experience fear. I experience feeling not good enough. I experience not being the most of things.

I won’t lie. It gets me AGITATED.

Sometimes it makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It makes me want to drive around in my car and have my own DIY primal scream sessions, to draw all the curtains and hide, to avoid going to yoga in case someone thinner than me is in the room, to never date again because if I let myself care, I can be hurt.

I think that plenty of people in recovery can relate to that. But what can you possibly do?

Here’s the good news.

In this uncomfortable space, there is also an invitation to do something truly radical: to love yourself, and to let go of being the fucking best.

To love yourself is different than being proud of yourself because you’re the thinnest/fastest/cleverest/best/etc. To actually love yourself means to recognize that even not being the most extreme version of anything, you’re probably still pretty great.

Self acceptance and self love sounds simple, and it is. What’s hard is actually practicing it, day in and day out. I struggle.

And yet even as hard as it is to face who I am sometimes, there are other times when I look at myself in the mirror and feel a true burst of love and think “hi, you”.

More good news: I think it gets easier with practice. And a life where you can enjoy yourself is better than the imperious but lonely life of a restrictive eater.

Do you miss being “good” at your eating disorder?

I Can Change.

You may not know this about me, but I’m a ghostwriter. This means that various clients who have stories to tell but lack in writing skills hire me to help them tell their stories. I love ghostwriting because it’s like playing pretend.

Recently, I was writing an entrepreneurial article about how to strengthen your weaknesses to improve your business prospects.

However, it got me thinking, because a lot of the advice I was writing (as someone else) seemed to hold true to other stuff in life, too.

Writing as my entrepreneur alter-ego, I wrote about how one of the first steps toward strengthening your weaknesses is identifying them.

I began thinking about my own weaknesses, in both my personality and how I function in relationships. Not necessarily in a self blame or beating myself up sort of way, but more in a “well, how could my life and relationships benefit from changing these things?” kind of way.

One thing in particular that I decided to focus on is my tendency toward isolation.

I have this thing where I need a lot of space. A whole solar system of space. I need a lot of alone time, and I can get cagey if someone is in my space too long. I get mean and rude and selfish. I alienate people. But then when I am left alone, I feel shitty. I get lonely and then I get sweet and try to lure them back.

It’s a terrible thing, that push-pull thing I do.

When I am eventually left alone and get lonely, a scaffolding of food thoughts seems to rapidly construct around my heart and brain, keeping them from feeling hurt, but also keeping them from feeling connection.

So, in thinking about this, I took my own advice, again from the article I was writing.

I considered the benefits of changing.

On the one hand, changing is scary, because if I change, will I even be able to recognize myself?

But then on the other hand, I realize I have so much to gain by trying to conduct myself differently. I could gain love connections, deep friendships, family, opportunity…actually, pretty much ONLY benefits.

By changing, I could make my life and relationships better and stronger and more loving.

The only non-beneficial aspect that I could think of was a doozy, of course: it would be hard to change.

For one thing, it meant that I had to acknowledge my bad behavior and to admit that my conduct may have been hurtful to people in the past. It also meant that I had to face the fact that this tendency of mind could be keeping me from experiencing the true potential of relationships.

God, that was a hard truth to face. Part of me couldn’t even take it, and wanted to do something, anything, to get rid of that rotten feeling of having done something wrong.

In my eating disordered past, I would deal with that terrible feeling by smothering it with food thoughts. I might try to fill the void with ice cream and cookies and then vomit them up to give the pain a physical manifestation. Or, I might deny myself food while simultaneously thinking about it all the time.

Distraction techniques. It’s so easy to see now. But now, all I’m left with is pain.

I wanted to make big sobbing apologies to people, to beg for and be granted forgiveness. I wanted to make things OK again, like right now.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Talk can be good, but it’s cheap if it’s not backed up by action. A teary apology is only a band-aid if I don’t take more proactive steps to change the behavior.

So now, here’s where the real work begins: being open to, and committing to, changing for the better.

The other day, I made a list of things that I could do to help foster this true and lasting change and to be more open and loving without my ol’ push-pull routine. It went kind of like this:

1. Let people in.

2. Say yes more.

3. Be communicative.

4. Let yourself love.

5. Let things hurt.

6. Consider the other person’s point of view.

Then, on Sunday, I went to a yoga class where the teacher did a talk on the very subject of change, which was oddly appropriate to my situation. His yogic prescription is even simpler and better than mine, and included “the 4 R’s”. I forget exactly how he explained them so I am taking a few liberties here.

Refuge: Get yourself in a safe, quiet place for reflection.

Remember: Remember what transpired.

Regret: Consider the potentially hurtful effects.

Resolve: Learn from your mistakes, and resolve to move forward in better ways.

Anyhow, this is kind of a long-winded way of getting around to it, but one of my realizations here is that the work of recovery doesn’t get any easier the further you progress.

If anything it just gets more challenging, because you actually have to live with and sit with the deeply uncomfortable feelings of inadequacy and anxiety that come with facing your personal demons. You don’t have the safety of your eating disorder anymore to cover up the pain.

I’m not trying to be defeatist by saying this, though. Ultimately, while dealing with these “real” issues is hard, I believe the rewards can be incredible. For me, actually facing these things means moving toward the life, happiness, and true and lasting connections that I so deeply desire.

Do you believe in change?

Olive. I Love.

Olive. Little O. Osie Posie. Tender Muffin. Little Girl. Muffinella. Chicken Tender. Nugget. Ozie-O. Yesterday, my little 14-almost-15 year old pug left this earthly plane.

I have a little experience with the Loss of a Pug. Last December, I lost my other pug, Porkchop. To say it was devastating would be an understatement. I basically hid from the world for a month, smoked pot all day, and did yoga at home. Leaving the house was hard.

The loss of Olive was different, in a variety of ways.

For one, I knew it was coming. I recognized her decline in health, as I had seen it in Porkchop. The loss of sensation in her legs. Not being able to stand up. Not being able to pee or poop without help. The heavy breathing.

Knowing it was coming didn’t make it easier. At some moments I was willfully ignorant. Pretending it wasn’t happening. Fooling even myself for a few minutes here and there.

But I think the biggest thing is that when Olive died, I felt profoundly alone.

When Porkchop died, I came home and Olive was still there. In the near-year since Porkchop passed, Olive and I formed an extremely close bond. It was just us girls. We would get stoned and watch romcoms on Fridays. We had dinner together. I took her for walks in her sling. It was me and Olive, against the world.

When I came home after having Olive put to sleep, the house was just empty.

I had Olive for nearly 11 years. There was a three year gap in the middle, after I got divorced and my ex kept her and I kept Porkchop. After several years, we agreed it would be best if she came back to live with me.

I always worried that she would be angry at me for leaving her for three years. But if anything, she taught me a lesson about forgiveness. She was not once passive aggressive or distrustful. When I got her back, she continued loving me completely and fully and never stopped. She pretty much never left my side. She was my little miracle baby, returned to me.

Her health wasn’t good when she came back to me. She was overweight and overall just not well. But I nursed her back to health. She lasted nearly 4 more years.

With Olive’s death, I am mourning so much more than just her physical presence.

I am mourning the death of my marriage. I was divorced years ago, but I got Olive with my ex. It felt like a punch in the gut all over again: I’m really divorced. If I’d stayed married, I would probably have two kids by now.

Yes, I know I’ve gone on to lead a wonderful life that never would have happened without the divorce, but still, there’s that part of me. That what if part.

I am mourning the death of the relationship I had after my marriage ended. Where we went on vacations and took Olive and Porkchop, always. How we walked them around Asheville in a stroller.

I’m mourning all of the things and people and places that have come and gone in my life since Olive came into it. In those years, with Olive, I’ve lived in Seattle, Santa Fe, Asheville, Philadelphia. Olive has been to the majority of the lower 48 with me.

Olive was part of me, and with her death, it feels like part of me has died too.

I know I gave her a good life. The best life. And that she gave me so much joy, with her janky walk. With her assertive, feminine bark, indignant when I had the audacity to go upstairs and take a bath and leave her all alone downstairs.

Olive loved Channing Tatum. She liked Romcoms and she liked figure skater costumes. She hated being dressed up as a unicorn but she did it sometimes, for me. She melted the hearts of the kids on my block. She could be a little brat, but she was my brat.

Olive accepted me completely as who I am. When I gained weight, when I lost weight, when I was crying, when I was happy. She loved me unconditionally. I was never not good enough in her eyes.

I loved her with my heart. Who am I without her?

On a day like today, following the death of a beloved pet, it’s tempting to think that the world is just dirt. You know, that women never really faint and that villains always blink their eyes, that children are the only ones who blush and that life is just to die.

But at the same time, I know that is not what Olive would have felt. She would have opened her big googly eyes and been just as excited today as she was yesterday and the day before to be alive. Another day, another breakfast.

Yesterday, before I took her to the vet for The Big Sleep, I treated my little girl. I made her a hamburger with peanut butter and an egg on top, and I let her eat it off of a real plate. I sat on the floor and ate dinner with her.

We talked about boys. We talked about life. I told her how I was talking to someone I am dating now and how I asked him if he thought life was inherently beautiful or terrible, and how he said something that struck me as incredibly profound: “Life lurches”. I confessed: life felt like it was lurching, today, Olive.

Then, I drove her over to Olive Street. Whenever I’ve driven by this street I’ve though I wanted to get a photo of Olive by it. I finally did it yesterday. See?

I hope that when it’s my time, someone gives me a loving sendoff like that.

Goodbye, sweet Olive. Thank you for opening my heart a million times over during the all too brief time I got to spend with you.

<3

Routine and Recovery

I believe in routine. It makes me feel safe, and it makes me feel productive. I also believe it’s one of the best things I can do to assist in my continued eating disorder recovery.

Not that you asked, but here is my morning routine:

4:30 to 5:30 am: Wake up. Make coffee in mini Italian percolator while concurrently frothing milk (start the coffee then the milk and they time out perfectly). Pour into pint-style glass and top with milk. Read book and check horoscope.

6:00 am: Leave the house for yoga. If the weather is good, ride bike or walk.

6:00 to 6:30 am: 2.5 mile bike ride. On the way, enjoy the sights of the early morning, such as:

Coffee shop employees loading the pastry case before they open

Union workers in neon green-yellow shirts headed to work

Bakery bread deliveries waiting on doorsteps…I’m always amazed that not more of these are stolen.

The city skyline from Washington Avenue

6:30 til 8 am or so: Mysore style Ashtanga yoga.

8:00 to 9:00am: Work way back home. Almost always see the Mambo Movers truck parked by Whole Foods.

My routine might sound odd to you.

You might think “Jesus Christ what time do you wake up?” (plenty of people do. I just wake up naturally at these times. Even on weekends. It’s a blessing and a curse.)

But I love my routine.

A better use of routine.

It used to be that my routines revolved around food.

Food had to be eaten at certain times. On certain plates. In certain quantities. Then, I’d have an extra special routine of counting how many calories I’d eaten, over and over. Once one meal was over, the planning would commence for the next time I’d eat.

I was extremely controlling about my consumption, and it consumed my life.

My eating disorder gave me a lot of busy work. It required planning my day around food, and the routines it required took up a lot of time.

These were unhealthy routines. They were not serving me.

My current morning routine is one of the ways I challenge my eating disorder.

I don’t think that having a routine is a problem. In fact, I think it can be a very good thing. However, the routines involved in an eating disorder are totally unhealthy.

So rather than try to remove routines altogether, what I’m trying to do is replace them with positive routines that serve me in bigger ways.

My morning routine revolves around yoga.

The routine I detailed above is centered around my Ashtanga yoga practice. I had gotten into Ashtanga led classes in Asheville, but lapsed when I moved to Philadelphia.

I revived my passion when I began doing Mysore style Ashtanga. To the uninitiated, this practice may sound kind of strange.

It’s self led and it follows the same set sequences. Why pay to do yoga that’s self led, you ask? Well, there are some compelling reasons why. For instance: the teacher knows the sequence inside and out and has expertise on every pose. They can watch and give you very specific feedback, really deepening your practice. So you get a lot more one on one attention.

Additionally, there’s something magically meditative about that room. It’s warm and like some sort of church but where you can people breathing loudly and with purpose. It sounds weird but the energy hits you like a wall. Not in a bad way.

Ashtanga is a vigorous practice. There’s actually quite a bit of literature out there about how Ashtanga is not a good thing for recovering anorexics, because it can be triggering. In some cases the recovering anorexic might be deluding themselves, claiming they have a “healthy” routine where really, they’re secretly using Ashtanga for some sort of compulsive exercise and as a mode of weight management.

I think that this is a very valid concern. I see the logic. And I do feel the compulsion to practice NO MATTER WHAT sometimes. But I try to keep myself in check: if I have a day where I feel under the weather but have that voice that says “but you HAVE TO,” I try to question it. Would yoga really serve me today?

However, I think that the rewards far outweigh the risk. Overall, this routine has allowed me to invest in things that are serving my mind and body, rather than spending my time engaging in food routines that go nowhere and give me nothing. The peace that I feel when drinking coffee and reading in the early AM hours, the joy that I feel on my early morning bike rides…these are such small but special moments.

I have felt extremely rewarded by establishing a routine that makes me feel so good and vital. It makes me wonder: what other negative routines could I eradicate, and what goodness could I replace them with?

Do you have any routines?

What Doesn't Kill You.

How would you feel if someone told you they’d be more attracted to you if you had a more shapely butt? 

Or if you dressed differently? 

Or if you changed your diet? 

Or (sorry, TMI) if you did more kegel exercises? 

The answer is obvious, of course: you’d say “go fuck yourself!” and get on with your life being awesome and amazing you, because you know in your heart that you’re enough. 

Of course, that's the RomCom or Sex and the City, Highly Empowered Woman version of things. 

In real life, sometimes the criticism is presented in such a way that you actually take it to heart.

For the record:

I think I’m incredible. I think I’m attractive, and I’m not shy about sharing (ahem showing off) when I'm good at something. All you have to see is my yoga instagram posts to know this. 

But between you and I:

I'm embarrassed to say it, and I'm mad at myself to admit it: but I let someone I was in a relationship with say all of the above things to me. And I didn't instantly break up with that person after any of them. 

In fact, I actually listened. Me! I thought I was better, more confident, more no-bullshit than that. 

The thing is this:

In real life, small forms of emotional abuse can be hard to recognize right away. They build up slowly, and there's a lot of gray area because usually, not everything is terrible. 

The person in question was actually quite wonderful in many ways. 

That made it easier to make excuses, like "this person is just blunt." "this person is trying to help me become a better and stronger person." "they're telling me what everyone else is too scared to."

Timing is everything.

You need to consider the timing of this relationship, too. I was at a point in my life, transitioning from my sweets-based business of many years. I was making on a big dietary shift.

Emotionally, I was working on transitioning from the glitter sweets queen to someone with a little more substance, who didn’t have to smile all the time, who could be authentic in different ways. 

I was vulnerable, and I wanted love and attention. 

I listened.

And so I listened to these “helpful” suggestions, and chose to see them as constructive criticism designed to make my life better.

I thought I was being so mature, being able to listen to criticism and to improve based on it rather than reacting in anger.

Adding to the complexity, actually, some of the changes I made did improve my life. 

Yet at the same time I struggle, because in spite of that fact, the unaccepting behavior exhibited by the other person was completely unacceptable.

So how do I remedy these two facts: that I grew from the relationship yet also feel as if I was emotionally abused and controlled? 

Eating disorders and susceptibility to emotional abuse

This is anecdotal at best, but I do believe that disordered eaters, either active or in recovery, are susceptible to emotional abuse from partners. This is perhaps due to the fact that as confident as we may present, there's a deep-seeded "I'm not good enough" fear that loves to come out and play. 

Perhaps ironically, what made me certain in my heart that the relationship had to end was not this person's blatant douchebagging. It was the fact that I was feeling the inklings of an anorexic relapse. It felt like it was just around the corner. So in a backwards way, my disordered eating kind of helped me by acting as a flashing "get out now" sign.

I was (and still am) very happy on a high fat and low carbohydrate diet, but I was beginning to have irrational food fears again. I was struggling eating around others, and I actually began to fear carbohydrates. The idea of accidentally eating an errant crouton that somehow got onto my salad plate even when I requested none...it would haunt me. 

Something had to be done. 

I realized that regardless of the good parts of the relationship, that overall it was a bad situation for me. So I followed Paul Simon's suggestion and slipped out the back, jack, made a new plan stan...I got myself gone. 

I broke off the relationship. And suddenly, the world began to blossom again for me. I decided to experiment with eating some sweets again, if for no other reason than to not be scared of them. To make sure that my low carb lifestyle is a choice, and not fear based. 

Well, turns out that after about 6 months of eating zero sweets, I have lost my taste for them, which seems kind of crazy to me.

Nonetheless, I've adjusted my diet again to be a more moderate carb diet, less because of how I feel energetically and more because I feel that emotionally, it's better to include at least a moderate amount so that I don't start to fear food groups. 

Now, when I am craving sweets, I can honestly say, and not in some imperious way, that the idea of a perfect peach or crunchy apple seems like the most incredible treat. 

If it didn't kill me, am I stronger?

I'm still angry, both at the other person and at myself. 

But I'm choosing to take the lessons and leave the rest. After my foray into an emotionally controlling relationship, my big lesson is that autonomy is so incredibly important.

I don’t want to change myself for someone else. Part of me worries that this experience might make me slightly defiant about that for a while, which bums me out. I want to be open to changing and improving and evolving. But acceptance is important too.

I forget where I heard it (probably in yoga) but there is a saying that goes "we are all perfect just as we are. But we could all use some work."

Yes to that. But mostly, yes to being true to myself and staying the path on my life and recovery.

<3

What a Difference a Year Makes

Last year, in the spring, a little voice spoke to me. 

Move back to Philadelphia, it said. 

At the time I was living in Asheville, North Carolina. Along with my then-boyfriend, I rented a wonderful house in West Asheville with three bedrooms and a big, gorgeous lawn. I loved that house. I was teaching yoga, and I had possibly the best friend group I've ever had. 

But here's the thing. I saw the writing on the wall about my relationship ending. I also knew, in my heart, that Asheville wasn't my forever place, in spite of my deep love for it. 

Move back to Philadelphia, the voice said. Louder now. 

I had lived in Philadelphia before, for a year, from 2012-2013. I lived in a beautiful loft apartment a block away from the Reading Terminal Market, and I loved it. I loved the Philadelphia apathy, the dirtiness, the pulse, the...realness. It felt real in a way that New York City hadn't felt real to me for years. 

Oh, and it was affordable. I learned that I could, conceivably, BUY A HOUSE for under $200,000 in Philadelphia. 

Move back, the voice said. It was getting insistent now.

I tried to ignore it, because I was wary of being escapist. Shouldn't I be trying harder with my relationship? Still, I kept on googling real estate listings. 

OK, so now here's where I ask you a question that might make you think I'm kind of a nut:

Do you believe in signs? 

Cheesy as it may sound, I do believe in signs. I believe that the universe, or whatever you want to call it, sends me little nudges. For instance: whenever the song Africa by Toto plays, I feel serenely certain that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in the world.

So, during this time, I asked the universe to send me some signs:

• I asked it to send me signs that I was supposed to move to Philadelphia
• I asked it for signs that I was doing the right thing by ending my relationship.

Now here's where you'll think I'm really crazy. For moving to Philadelphia, I said "Hey universe, send me a sign that I can't ignore." For my relationship, I said, "Universe, send me a turtle if I'm supposed to save this relationship. Send me a flamingo if I'm doing the right thing by getting out." 

Here's what happened. 

Soon after my Meeting With The Universe imploring for signs, I went to the library. Now, my method of finding a novel to read at the library goes like so: choose a book which has a title and/or cover which I find intriguing, open the novel and read a page or two or the synopsis, then make my decision. 

So, I went to the West Asheville Library, and I took a book off the shelf at random. It was set in Philadelphia. I got little goosebumps. A sign! 

I kept browsing, and found another book that interested me. Guess what? Set in Philadelphia.

Two more books in a row were set in Philadelphia. Four books in a row, all set in the city I was considering. Now that felt like a sign. I was listening.

And then there were the flamingos.

I started seeing flamingos...EVERYWHERE. On cards, on apparel, on posters. Soon after the libary incident, I took a walk and saw a lawn with an ironic flamingo. OK. Thanks, universe.

Then, a few blocks later, I walked by another lawn with two flamingos. OK. Cool.

Then, I walked by a lawn in West Asheville that, no joke, was jam packed with flamingos. Some were even dressed up. I was listening to headphones on my walk, and I took them off. I looked to the sky. "I GET IT!" I said, loudly. If anyone heard, they probably thought I was crazy.

Honestly, I thought I was crazy.

But still, that night, I clicked the "inquire about this home" button on the realty site I was browsing. The woman who would end up being my realtor, Jeanette, contacted me like 5 minutes later. 

Something that you need to know about me is that it doesn't take me too much to get from "what if" to "let's go". So within a few weeks I was driving back and forth from Asheville to New Jersey, staying with my parents, and driving to see houses every few days. 

I saw some nice houses and I saw some that smelled like cat piss. Then, I saw the house that for got knows what reason spoke to me.

It was a fixer-upper for sure, but it was on a nicely maintained (if not very cool) South Philly block with rainbow lights. I loved it at first sight. 

In spite of the fact that just about everything about the house was (let's be honest still is) janky I loved it and made an offer. It went back and forth but eventually I got the place. 

I did what I have learned and continued to learn in the past year or so was a supremely badass move as a single female with an untraditional career: I bought myself a damn house. 

The day I moved in nothing went right. My ex helped me move, which was really nice of him. But otherwise it was terrible. The sofa didn't fit thru the door, the mattress didn't fit up the stairs. Also, I didn't really know anyone. I'd lived in Philadelphia for a year, five years before. I didn't have deep connections.

Still, I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

I went on a date where the guy asked me what I did during the day. I said "I wake up earlier than anyone you know and I like to write and draw and do yoga and take long walks and look for signs in the writing on the sidewalk". Once again, I remind you: I'm really kind of an oddball.

The signs were positive. They said they loved me, and I loved them back. 

I found a yoga studio in South Philly called Palo Santo. I revisited the yoga studio where I'd first started doing yoga, when I lived in the city in 2012, Dhyana yoga. That was where I started. And I kept growing.

In the past year, I have grown in so many ways I can't even list them. But really, what I want to share with you is the big takeaway: I decided it was finally time to be done with disordered eating.

While I have been in recovery for many years and operated from a "pretty good" place, some of the food thoughts and behaviors still persisted. What I began to realize is that being a food writer was a big part of what was holding me back from full recovery.

So, this was the year I decided to no longer do CakeSpy, which was my business and my life for the past 11 years. 

And then, I changed my diet. As much as I love food, I realized that I needed to take a break from it as entertainment. So, I adopted what I guess you would call a version of the ketogenic diet. Now, I'm the most boring eater ever and no fun to go out to eat with. The majority of my intake comes from fat, meat, and vegetables. 

I haven't had a sweet since March or so, and I feel great. I don't think about food in the same obsessive way I used to. I don't know if I'll stay eating this way forever, but it's been such a welcome break from having to worry about food, so I am sticking with it for the foreseeable future. 

Over the months, I have kept on seeing flamingos and see them as a sign that I'm on the right path. But recently, there's been a shift, and for whatever reason, I've started seeing lions. Could it mean that in a Katy Perry-esque way, you're gonna hear me ROAR?

Anyhow, this long ranting and crazy post isn't about me trying to make you ask the universe for signs. That's my crazy thing. However, it is about following your heart or what you feel you're being guided to do. Sometimes, it doesn't make sense to leave a perfectly good situation. But sometimes, it's exactly what you need to do to save your life. Because if you don't take the leap, what will start eroding inside of you?

From here, I am more recovered and more happy than I have ever been in my adult life. I have fewer wrinkles at 36 than I did at 32. And it was all because I trusted my instinct. 

The other day I went to a party at one of my yoga studios and I was greeted with SO MUCH familiarity and love. I had a tarot reading at that party, and the reader told me that I thought I'd had this big life shift and new beginning and that was that, but really, I had no idea how far it was all going to go. What I thought was my big beginning was, well, just the beginning.

Look, another sign. I wonder what a difference this next year could make...?

Do you trust your instincts?

Help Yourself First

So, when you go on an airplane and they're doing the whole safety instruction thing, they always tell you that in the event of an emergency, you should secure your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others.

You already know why they do this. Because if you don't put your own on first, then you won't be able to breathe and therefore you'll never be able to help anyone else because YOU WILL BE DEAD. 

Yet in our everyday lives, so many of us are more than happy to put the happiness of others way in front of our own needs. We don't put ourselves first. Far from it. 

We think it makes us good people. To put ourselves first would make us terribly selfish, after all, right? But really, by being so "nice" and selfless, we're actually doing ourselves some deep and lasting harm.

Take, for example, a person who is caring for a sick family member, attending to their every need to the point where they have sacrificed their own life. Here's what happens. The person in the caretaker position will eventually get burned out, and they won't be giving the sick person the best of themselves. Now, everybody loses. The sick relative isn't getting the best care. The caretaker has become physically and mentally burned out, and now feels emotionally sick. 

No, I am not saying that if you have a sick relative that you should dismiss them. However, what I am saying is that being selfless can have diminishing returns. It's important to take care of yourself. So if you are in that "caretaker" role, be sure to tend to your own needs too, because they are equally important. 

Me, I'm a people pleaser. 

My "putting myself second" doesn't necessarily show up in a clear-cut, Mother Theresa, saintly self-sacrifice kind of way.

For me, I think it shows through with how I conduct myself with people and how I work. For instance, in my work, I am willing to go way above and beyond what is required, sacrificing my time, sleep, and efforts for results that will please others. I want gold stars all the time! The fact that something I've created will please others is a strong motivator for me, and I am willing to sacrifice myself for it. 

Similarly, I am willing to do a lot to help others. I'll take the time to listen to their problems, to help them pursue projects, to give them advice, to drive them around so that they can run errands if their car is broken down. I don't ask things in return, because I don't want to be a bother, because I'm scared to, or because I don't think that my stuff matters or deserves as much attention. Their happiness is all I need, right?

In the past, this has very much been attached to disordered eating. I can draw direct lines to incidents where I have not pleased people and when I have had episodes of bingeing and purging, or times when I've gone into periods of active restriction. 

People pleasing can be like a disease. But not an obvious disease, a sneaky disease, because you can trick yourself into believing you're being so selfless, so giving, so good.

Happily, there is a cure. Sadly, it's easier said than done. Ready to hear what it is?

Help. Yourself. First. 

God, that sounds greedy, doesn't it? Attending to your own needs before those of others? What are you, some kind of asshole? 

No. You're performing the emotional equivalent of putting on your own air mask first on the airplane. And you WILL benefit from it. 

Everyone is different, but as I see it, here are some of the things you could potentially gain by putting yourself first:

1. You'll be happier.

When you tend to others first, on some level you don't feel cared for yourself. This can build into exhaustion at best, resentment at worst. When you feel that you've been attended to and your needs are being met, you'll be happier. 

2. You'll spend less money.

When you are constantly giving to others, often you start to feel a hole inside of you. Often, people try to fill this void with stuff. I've noticed that people who give to others before themselves tend to splurge more, because on some level they are trying to make themselves feel loved. 

3. You'll eat better.

Back to the hole inside of you discussed just above. If you're not filling it with stuff, chances are you're stuffing yourself with food in an effort to try to fill that void. Maybe you're trying to make yourself feel loved by eating chocolate cake or treating yourself to a second glass of wine. Let's get this straight: I don't think that treating yourself with emotionally pleasing foods is always a bad thing. However, being self aware of why you're doing it is important. If your needs are truly being met, you may find it is not necessary to use food to fill the void. 

4. You will have more time.

Oh hi, if you're attending to your own needs, then you'll be getting your own shit done. This means that you won't be so busy attending to others or pleasing others that you don't have time to do anything for yourself. This means that your time will be more efficient because you'll feel like you're not constantly in a state of catching up. 

5. You'll actually be able to help others.

OK, so you're spending less, you're happier, you're less exhausted, you're eating better. Overall, by helping yourself first, you are overall doing a lot better as a human being. Ultimately this means that when you do want to help others, you'll be better equipped to do so. Wait, what? By helping yourself first, you can actually better help others? Yup. That's the secret. Everyone wins this way. 

Do you have trouble putting yourself first?

On Suicide

Once upon a time, I had a kind-of suicide attempt. It happened in college. Actually...I guess it ended college. My own, personal, rock bottom at age 19.  

To set up the story, let me bring you up to date with some things that were going on in my life at the time:

• I was a student. I was a full-time illustration student at Pratt, just starting my third year.
• I had just moved into my first "real" apartment. I had moved into an apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with a friend, and was dealing with the complicated ways in which friendship changes when you become roommates. I was also living with this stick-thin ice queen and a very handsome Balthazar waiter. Everyone in the house was, I thought, better-looking and definitely more skinny than me. They were all the type of people who forgot to eat lunch. I have never in my life forgotten to eat lunch. They all made me feel fat and unattractive.
• I was working a LOT. In addition to being a full time student, I had gotten a job waiting tables at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. I was the only white person who worked there, and the only girl. Some of them were touchy, like “oh I just brushed your nipples by accident”. I cringe saying this now, but at the time I just accepted it as part of the job. 
• I was broken-hearted. I had also recently had a love story that fizzled out. We'd had a beautiful and rom-com worthy meeting wherein I was watching him perform at the Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village and he locked eyes on me and maintained eye contact for the rest of his set. Swoon! But when we started to date, it turned into nothing. I was inexperienced, and this feeling of magic that turned into nothing was deeply disappointing to me. 

• I was bingeing and purging on a very frequent basis. 

• I was in therapy. Her office was on Central Park west, a room in her apartment, a street I aspired to live on sometday. I felt so important breezing past the doorman and saying I had an appointment with so-and-so. My therapist was a hardass, and accused me of using bingeing and purging to dissociate from the real world. I hated her for making me face that truth, and would frequently binge and purge after our sessions. 

But it all began to fall apart after September 11. 

I saw the buildings go down--everyone at Pratt did. Without really getting permission or talking about it, everyone basically abandoned whatever they were doing and ran up to the roof. I remember I was working at the art supply store; we all just left and didn't even lock the door. We all saw the towers go down. I think what I remember most is that it was actually oddly beautiful, seeing each tower go down in a huge puff of what looked like glitter. But then when it dawned on you that it was actually steel and fire and there were people in it...it was almost too much to comprehend. 

After that, things stopped mattering for a while. 

I stopped caring about work. I stopped caring about school. I stopped caring about being polite to my roommates.  

And then one day in October, I just gave up. I don’t know why it was that day in particular. Here's how it went down. 

Early in the day, I was supposed to meet my roommate for a movie. But I spent my last cash on a slice of pizza on 72nd street, and I was too embarrassed to ask her for money, so I just didn’t show up. This was before cell phones and a highly rude thing to do.

Instead, I went to work early. I remember I was wearing a stupid-looking hat that day. When I got to work, my co-workers said that I looked like "a lesbian". I kept the hat on to prove that their words didn't affect me, but they did. 

On my break, I bought some alcohol from a deli that didn’t care about legal ages, and chugged it in the bathroom. I am not a big drinker, so this was unusual for me. I got kind of drunk, and my fellow waiter noticed. 

After work, I walked home, reasoning that this would "burn off" the candy bar I bought after work and devoured. I was dreading seeing my roommate. When I got back to my apartment, my roommate asked if we could talk. I said sure, as soon as I took a bath. Then, this is what I did. 

I began running a bath. Into the bathroom I took a bag of stale Oreos (they belonged to one of my roommates) from the cabinet. I ate them all under the cover of the bath noise. I crept back to the kitchen and got a bag of chips; I ate the entire thing as the bath continued to fill. I stopped the water, but went back to the kitchen. I found a box of cheesecake mix. I poured some milk right into the bag and ate it with a spoon, right there in the kitchen. Anyone could have walked in and found me. 

I left the bath full of water, put my coat on, and left the house. I needed to go to buy ipecac, which is what I used to induce vomiting, but no place in Greenpoint was open at this hour (it wasn't trendy then like it is today); I'd need to go to the 24 hour Walgreens on Union Square. 

I walked to Bedford avenue for the subway, stopping wherever I could along the way and buying more food. Doughnuts, sprinkle cookies, a bagel. While waiting for the train, I saw someone I knew, and he waved. I ignored him.

When I got to Walgreens, I purchased two containers of ipecac. The first I downed right outside the door, and I started walking. I bought salad bar fried chicken at a deli, which was probably the worst thing I've ever eaten. I bought another bagel, and crumb cake. Chinese food. Ice cream. Pop tarts. I kept on stuffing myself, slowly milling east because I knew a few parks there where I could at least vomit into a trash can when the ipecac kicked in. 

I ended up in Stuyvesant Town, a high rise development in the East village. I also felt sick; I was so full, and I hadn't gotten the vomit reflex yet. 

I laid down on the ground near a in a square, writhing in misery. The ipecac still hadn't kicked in. 

I downed the second bottle of ipecac, and writhed more, feeling sorry for myself. Then, I began to panic: why wasn't the ipecac working? I could feel those evil little calories like a war fleet, invading my legs and stomach, making me fat. 

I needed to take action. 

So, I did what seemed like the clearest and best decision to purge myself of all of that food: I got up, I went over to the closest hospital and told the apathetic-looking desk clerk that I needed my stomach pumped because I’d swallowed poison. 

It was true, after all; ipecac was a sort of poison. I figured that if I said I'd swallowed poison, they would pump my stomach and effectively purge me of this incredibly epic binge. Yes, this is what passed as logic at the time.

Wow, if you could have seen how fast that lady sprung out of apathy and to life. I remember being brought to a room. I remember having something shoved down my throat. I remember that must have been exactly what I needed, because it all came out then. I basically projectile vomited around the tube they were attempting to insert in my mouth. The vomit went all over me, all over several doctors or nurses or various figures who happened to be around. I detected crumb cake, the buttercream frosting from the cookies, and yes, a little bit of egg roll. There was just so much of the vomit, and it smelled TERRIBLE. It came in waves for what felt like an hour, but it was probably less. 

I wasn't even mortified; I was relieved. Finally, I had gotten rid of all of it. I felt peaceful, empty. I fell asleep. 

What I hadn't considered is that when I woke up, I would still be at the hospital and I'd have to explain myself. 

I was feeling a lot better; I'd purged. However, the hospital wasn't so keen on just letting me go on my merry way: when you come to the hospital and tell them you’ve ingested poison, they consider you a suicide risk.

I'm not going to even go into the pain of having to explain myself, or the incredible grief and anger this episode caused for my parents. Or the mortification of having my dad come in and check me out. 

Or this last detail, which has actually bugged me a lot over the years: when I the doctor came to check on me in the morning, he (or she? I forget) said that while I seemed to have traces of rat poison in my system, I was going to be ok. 

Wait, I had actual non-ipecac poison in my system? That still boggles my mind. 

So, this was my kind-of-suicide attempt. At the time, I would have told you that it was just an attempt to purge myself that got out of control. But in retrospect, I do believe that I was extremely self destructive, if not suicidal, and that it was a cry for help. 

After my so-called suicide attempt, I went on a leave of absence from Pratt that well, I'm still on.

I wish I could tell you that this was the wake up call I needed to recover, and that I enjoyed a movie-style montage of eating right, forging friendships, and that everything ended up ok. But really, it would be many years before I entered recovery in earnest. Unfortunately, I still had many years of bulimic episodes and then anorexia that would follow after this hospital incident.

However, the big takeaway from this experience was this: I wanted to live. 

Even in the face of suffering there is joy. In spite of the fact that life with an eating disorder sometimes felt like pure hell, I still loved life too much to give up. I think that this flicker of truth was a big part of what eventually led me to the true road toward recovery. 

Why am I telling you this? 

I'm telling you this because recently, some icons committed suicide: Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. I was deeply affected by the news of both, for two key reasons:

First, the world has lost some unique and great talents. That is a true tragedy. 

Second, I feel connected to both of these individuals in my own ways. No, I am not at all suicidal at this moment, please do not worry about that. However, I am in a time of transition from CakeSpy. For a very long time, I was maintaining a persona which was the version of myself that I showed to the world. While I wasn't as famous as either Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain, I know the pressure that not feeling like you "own" yourself can cause. By being in the public, it's like you have to sacrifice part of yourself to the people who love you, in a weird way. I suppose I am projecting a bit here, but from some of what I have obsessively read about their suicides, it DOES seem that this was a factor. 

Anyhow, I guess what I really want to say here is: even when it seems really, really bad, I do believe that things can get better, and that living is a truly beautiful thing. 

What are your thoughts on these recent suicides?

10 Amazing Things That Happened When I Started Eating More Fat

In the past, I've had a love/hate relationship with fat.

Love:

I've always loved the flavor of butter. Lard. Oil. Buttercream. Cream fillings. Fried food. 

Hate:

As someone with a restrictive eating disorder, I've always been scared as (insert expletive here) of fat, at the same time. Fat was something that needed to be rationed out. If I was putting butter on something, for instance, I knew exactly down to the eighth of a teaspoon how much I'd added. None of that oil drizzling sans measuring spoon for me, no way. 

For the past couple of years of my "almost recovery", I've largely been operating in a space of giving my body the bare minimum it needs to operate normally.

However, feeding myself enough to function is not the same as feeding myself adequately for a joyful life. So what I found happening was that in spite of eating regular meals, I was still thinking about food all the time. I would actually feel deep sadness after eating each meal, like "wow, what's next to look forward to today?". 

I feel a little stupid saying this, but it really only occurred to me fairly recently that what I was choosing to eat was affecting how I felt. 

Up until not that long ago, an average day of eating for me might be:

• Breakfast: a cookie, and an apple; coffee with whole milk 
• Lunch: a roll with peanut butter, and maybe some banana slices on top 
• Snack: a couple of nuts; a raw carrot 
• Dinner: a veggie stir fry served with sweet potato and maybe an egg on top  
• Occasionally: some sort of alcohol (glass of wine or beer) 

And well, let me tell you how I felt in general on this type of daily diet. Not great. Basically, I would always wake up hungry. By the time each meal came around, I was ravenous. I was thinking about food all the time. 

In spite of this being my regular diet, for the past couple of years, I have had intense fat cravings that I have mostly ignored. Particularly in the morning. I would actually wake up with visions of cheeseburgers with an egg on top dancing in my head. 

Well, eating a burger in the morning, that's kind of a strange thing.

However, every now and again for the past year plus, usually if I was alone, I would make something meat-y in the morning. My indulgence in particular was to make a ground lamb patty, cook it in butter, and serve it with a big ol spoonful of peanut butter on top, and garnish it with avocado. FAT FAT FAT. 

Thing is, when I would eat this fat-filled thing in the morning, I would feel great throughout the day. I had better mental clarity, and I wouldn't think about food again until maybe 2-3pm, and when I did, it wasn't with the same urgency as I would when eating say, a cookie and an apple for breakfast. 

It took me quite some time of doing this occasionally to realize "hey, maybe I would be better off if I did this higher fat thing more often". It dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, my typical higher-carbohydrate and higher-sugar diet was actually keeping me in a cycle of cravings and constant hunger and food thoughts. 

There were other things at hand, too. I had some health concerns that were slowly but surely mounting, including chronic dry mouth, an uncomfortable excess of facial hair, digestive issues, and hormonal issues.  

So, I had these things going on. I was really feeling like the key thing I looked forward to in life was eating either high carbohydrate or high sugar food, and I was experiencing health issues. It was clear that a change was necessary. 

About 3 months ago, I took the plunge. I began eating more fat. A LOT more fat. 

I know, I know, part of me hates me a little bit for it. After all, I'm the cake girl! What is the cake girl doing? But yes, I decided to largely nix carbohydrates and sugar from my diet and see how it felt. 

As a recovering anorexic, I'm extremely wary of cutting out foods or restriction of any kind. So rather than looking at this as "I'm removing these things from my diet" I choose to look at it as "I am adding fat to my diet and editing other parts of it to see how it might increase my vitality". 

So now, my typical daily diet includes a LOT of fat (primarily butter and beef fat), a moderate amount of protein, and very low carbohydrates. I hate labels and I hate diets, so I am not assigning any name to the way I'm eating right now, though there are names out there that many who I've told have assigned to it. 

I don't care what the diet I'm eating is called. Mainly, I care about the results, because when I started eating a lot more fat, some incredible things started happening: 

1. I lost my dry mouth.

Since about 2007, I've been plagued with dry mouth. This might not sound like such a terrible thing, but try living with it for like 10 years with no break. It's no fun. It made me feel weirdly thirsty but not thirsty, and made me paranoid that if I stood too close to people while talking, my  breath would be bad. It's like a monkey on your back. Within a few days of upping my fat intake, I noticed a drastic reduction in dry mouth. I barely experience it at all right now. 

2. Fewer sugar cravings. 

As I mentioned earlier, even while I was eating an acceptable amount of calories in my diet, I was experiencing constant food cravings, particularly for high sugar or high carbohydrate foods. Almost immediately after adding more fat to my diet, I had an immediate reduction in these cravings. What I realized is that what I was really craving was more fat, and more nutrition. This put me at odds with what I was doing in terms of creating sweet recipes and posting about sweets all the time because suddenly, I wasn't craving them anymore. I began to recognize that my body was actually calling out for nutrient-dense food at this time. 

3. I wasn't hangry.

I kind of hate the word "hangry" but it does describe the feeling pretty well. Every day around 10am, and around 3pm, I'd get hangry. I'd be counting the minutes until I was next "allowed" to eat. Or, I would try to eat the most minimal snack amount to keep me sane until the next time I could eat. 

Since fat is high satiety, I have been able to "last" between meals without thinking about food and without that jittery "gotta have something" feeling. It's been a wonderful change for me.

4. Mental clarity.

I don't talk a lot about how I make money, but suffice it to say that I am working a lot. I do freelance writing and illustration, and often work upwards of 12 hours a day. I can easily get overwhelmed with my workload. 

Since I've started eating more fat, I have noticed that I don't get as easily overwhelmed. I am better able to slowly plod through my to do list and not feel the need to flit from task to task like a hummingbird. I find that eating more fat allows me to keep my cool when I am under pressure. 

5. I stopped growing facial hair.

You know what, I'm just going to go there. When I dropped to my lowest weight around 29 or 30 years of age, I began to grow dark, coarse facial hair. Even as I began to gain and reached a normal weight range, the hair growth persisted. Because it was so fast growing, I couldn't possibly wait to have it waxed. I would shave, and later on, I began to have laser hair removal. 

When I changed my diet, reduced carbohydrates, and increased fat, my facial hair stopped growing. The last time I went to a laser hair removal session they said that I could double the time between appointments because it simply wasn't growing back at the same rate. Honestly, you guys, that alone makes a case for increasing fat. I daresay that no woman is JAZZED about facial hair. 

6. Fewer food thoughts. 

As I referenced earlier, even being "mostly recovered" and in a place where I was eating "enough", I was still thinking about food a lot. Like, a lot. I felt like I cared more about food than some of my friends and work assignments. 

When I began eating more fat, I found that I was thinking less about food in general. Honestly, this felt like being set free from jail. I would eat, and then I wouldn't feel the same deep sorrow that I used to feel upon finishing a meal and realizing it would be hours until I could eat again. 

7. More energy. 

Not only did I notice a reduction in food thoughts, but I noticed an increase in energy. Even a few months ago, I would have to ration out my energy. For instance, if I knew I was going to yoga, I would have to eat at a certain time, because I knew if I didn't eat close enough to the time I was exercising I would get light-headed. If I was going out for several hours, I would need to consider bringing a snack because I wouldn't always know if I would have the energy to walk or bike home. By eating a higher fat diet, I don't have to worry about this as much because I have longer sustained energy and don't have those "spikes". 

8. Improved muscle definition. 

With my increased energy, I have been enjoying exercise more, and have gained an interest in becoming physically stronger. Yoga has kept me flexible and fit, but not very strong. Not so long ago, I began to add some weights to my fitness routine, and I have found that it makes me feel physically and mentally really good. I feel like my body composition has changed quite a bit, and for the first time in my life I am enjoying feeling strong rather than just wanting to be thin. 

9. I became nicer.

Um, ok. When I was chronically underfeeding myself, not satisfied, hangry, experiencing constant sugar cravings, do you think I was pleasant to be around? Not really. I was the type of person who would have meltdowns in Target if it got past my feeding time. By eating higher satiety foods, I am less likely to be all over the place emotionally. I can also pay attention better. Overall, adding more fat to my diet has made me nicer and more patient. 

10. I feel more attractive. 

Let's see. I don't have the dry mouth or facial hair that caused so much self consciousness before. I have more energy. I have more muscle definition. I'm not suffering obsessive food thoughts. 

The sum total of these things is that I feel more self confident and comfortable in my skin, and this makes me feel very attractive. When I walk down the street, I feel good about myself. In the past years I've often felt cute or compelling in the looks department, but now I actually feel attractive. Hopefully I don't sound superficial in saying this, but it has really boosted my self esteem in that way. 

Am I saying that high fat eating is a cure-all? No, I am not. However, I do believe that making this dietary change has really had a huge impact on propelling my almost-recovery into a more fully realized version of recovery, and I am hugely thankful for that.

What's your relationship with fat?

Trimming The Fat

So, I've been seeing a lot of dead birds lately. I mean that literally.

It's mostly tiny birds, crushed on the sidewalk, like maybe they landed there and someone accidentally stepped on them. I've seen a whopping seven of them in the past week or so. Two just yesterday.

It's been a little disturbing and a little unusual. Perhaps I'm a little superstitious, because I am prone to seeing significance in things like this: yeah, I see them as potential signs. What could encountering dead birds mean? I did what any semi-spiritual person would do: I gave it a google.

So, what is the significance of seeing dead birds? As I found here,

"It represents a death, but it is a death of something you have been focused on.  It could be the death or “end” of a bad relationship, or a bad financial situation, or a behaviour pattern you have been wanting to break, etc.  And with all things that end, the way is then clear for new opportunities to come into your life."

If you go by that school of thought, then encountering these dead birds might not be the bad omen I feared they were. As this article goes on, 

That is what these dead birds are, a message that whatever you were dealing with is now “dead” and behind you and you are now ready to move forward with the new opportunity that has been presenting  itself to you but that you have been ignoring for some reason. So, see the sign, and determine what message it is sending you and be grateful that you have now received the message and start looking for the new opportunity.

Well, that resonated with me, big time. I'm going through an obvious and big transition by ending CakeSpy and figuring out How To Move Forward. 

At the risk of continuing to sound annoyingly semi-spiritual, I think that this time of transition is vital in my final stages of recovery from disordered eating.

It's in some ways the most subtle phase of recovery, and in some ways the most dramatic. It's the time when I must shed my former skin to move forward.

Or as I'm thinking of it, I'm trimming the fat.

When I say "trimming the fat" I am speaking in a figurative sense. Basically, I am taking stock of my life and deciding what is serving me and what is not. Those things that I identify as holding me back? I'm trying to get rid of them. Here are some examples of the "fat" that I'm trimming:

Unhealthy behaviors.

Recently, someone pointed out a behavior of mine. It is something that I do on a frequent basis when I'm rejected or criticized. Basically, when I am faced with the discomfort of criticism, I take on this sunny-yet-steely demeanor, breezing off the comments and kind of shrugging "oh well, that's just the way I am / the best I can do / etc". I take an attitude of "this is bouncing right off of me" but then, later, in private, I'll obsess about the criticism and have painful, I'm-not-good-enough emotions. 

So, maybe instead of using time and energy letting things like this fester inside of me, maybe what I really need to do is this: take a minute to feel the pain or impact of the criticism at the time it is given, and begin to actually work on it rather than going to my cave. While it might sting more in the moment, ultimately I would experience less pain in the long run. 

This is an example of an unhealthy behavior that I am working very hard to eradicate. Not only does it simplify my life, but it reduces the temptation to be secretive, which is when I tend to return to disordered eating thoughts. 

Obsessive food thoughts.

I am at a point in eating disorder recovery where I have not been actively restricting for quite a long time. But I am still sometimes prone to obsessive food thoughts. In my opinion, the thoughts are MUCH harder to get rid of than the actual behavior of restricting, bingeing, purging, what have you.

So how am I beginning to face and banish these obsessive food thoughts? By actually paying attention to what I eat and the effect is has on me. 

Believe it or not, for a long time I didn't really pay attention to how food affected my mind and body. I just kind of ate the same "safe" things all the time. It never occurred to me that some of these foods could actually be affecting my brain and perpetuating the obsessive food thoughts. 

Well, I've had a bit of a wake up call and have really begun noticing the connections between how I feel physically and mentally, and what I eat. I have made some drastic dietary changes which have had an extremely positive effect. Not only have I noticed huge relief in certain physical symptoms, but a huge reduction in obsessive food thoughts. 

Everything that keeps me from moving forward.

This one is perhaps harder to explain, but basically, I am taking an inventory of everyone and everything in my life and assigning a "pass/fail" system to it. 

For instance: pair of shoes I haven't worn since 2014? FAIL. Jeans that I never liked my butt in? FAIL. But it's also extending to people, places, and habits that aren't serving me. For instance: acquaintance who might become a friend one day but flakes out every time we make a coffee date? FAIL. 

I don't want to sound negative, but as it turns out there's a lot of stuff I have been carrying around both physically and emotionally which are really not doing much for me. Maybe we all are. 

Good fat = filler 

The good thing about trimming all that fat is now that I have all of these lean, exposed places. That means that there is room for Good Stuff in my life.

So in addition to trimming the fat, I'm also buffering myself up with some new behaviors to fill in what I am leaving behind. It's like I'm taking that old flabby fat and discarding it, and using good fat to fill in those voids. Here are some ways I'm doing that: 

Investing in myself.

I've been investing in myself, literally. For a long time, I was really cheap and would only buy articles of clothing that cost under $10 at thrift stores; similarly, I wouldn't invest in good blankets, body care products, etc. Part of it was a mentality of "oh, I don't need those fancy things". With items like furniture, etc, part of it was the idea that I never lived anywhere long enough to make such investments worthwhile. 

I am not saying that I've been on a huge spending spree here, but I am beginning to see the value in investing myself in these ways. By doing something like paying $78 for a pair of jeans that actually looks good on me, I'm showing myself respect, not to mention being less wasteful than buying 4 crappy pairs from the Target kids department for $15 each and not actually liking how I look in any of them. Investing in myself is a positive way of reinforcing the idea that I am worthy and good enough. 

Getting stronger.

I've been spending time getting physically stronger, too. Once again, I mean this literally. I've been a yoga enthusiast for a long time, but I've always been more flexible than strong. In many ways, I've been kind of passive about this in the past, just figuring "shrug, that's how I'm made, can't change it". 

The thing is, I can change it, and I am. So I have been focusing on strength building by doing exercises and working with weights, and it has had a pretty profound effect on my psyche. For one, it makes me feel more confident in my body. But for another, it makes me feel deeply capable. It might sound silly, but getting stronger physically is helping transport me from this place of being a helpless girl who can't lift things to being a capable woman. This has a positive effect mentally, as well: I feel like I can do things. 

Defining what I want.

Once someone gave me a great compliment, which was that "Jessie, it doesn't take you much to go from 'what if?' to 'let's go'."

Right now, I am trying to expand that in myself. I am taking the time to define and identify things (jobs, people, opportunities) that I want in my life. Well, I guess right now I am still in a time of transition, but I want to figure out these things.

I believe that when you take the time to actively define your goals like this, you become empowered to actually make a reality. This gives me focus and clarity, which means I can devote my attentions to things that truly matter to me. Without this focus, my thoughts can become jumbled, I can become overwhelmed, and turn to food thoughts for order and solace. I'd say that working toward positive goals is a much better use of my time and energy. 

Conclusion

The first steps in recovery, of course, are addressing the direct behavior toward food, be it restricting, bingeing and purging, whatever your method of self-abuse. 

But to progress into a deeper state of recovery once the behaviors have been dealt with, I believe that it's necessary to trim the fat from your life. It's the unhealthy and unnecessary things in your life that are going to tempt you back into disordered eating every time. 

Personally, by letting go of the "fat" and filling in my life with more positive influences and direction, I believe that I am in effect giving the last vestiges of my disordered eating a swift kick and allowing myself to grow into the person I'm meant to be. 

What fat do you need to trim from your life? 

Who Am I Now?

There's something different about me in this photo. It took me a little time to figure out what it was: I'm not smiling. 

For those of you who know me, I'm basically always smiling. In fact, I remember going to college on my first day and the security guard looked at me and said "Your Native American Name is Smiles-a-Lot". Actually, he didn't say "Native American" and in retrospect maybe it was kind of a racist thing to say. But the idea is that smiling is pretty inherent to my nature. I'm a sunny, upbeat person. 

In my previous life as CakeSpy, I capitalized on my sunny nature. Basically, I embodied a lifestyle of all cake, glitter, sugar, and happiness. At all times. This was very authentic to me, don't get me wrong. But it wasn't the full version of me. At times, I felt very one-note, like I had rendered myself into a cartoon character. 

So the fact that I am not smiling in this photo seems to speak volumes about the current place I am in life. Not unhappy, but at the point of Big Transition. 

Saying goodbye to CakeSpy

As you probably know if you're on this site, a little less than a month ago I made the decision to lovingly say goodbye to CakeSpy. It was a massive decision, and I felt extremely supported by the beautiful responses I received from readers both old and new. 

One of the big reasons why I said goodbye to CakeSpy is because I want to fully recover from my eating disorder.

I have suffered from disordered eating since the age of 13. At the age of 30, I entered recovery in earnest, and have identified as "mostly recovered" since then. But there have been certain aspects of the disorder, including obsessive food thoughts and calorie counting, that have remained problematic for me. 

I realized that running CakeSpy was perpetuating some of the behaviors that were holding me hostage in mostly-but-not-totally recovered purgatory.

I hated to admit this to myself, but it was true. I realized that to truly kick my eating disorder for ever and ever, I had to remove food as the primary focus in my life. And that meant giving up CakeSpy. 

This is somewhat ironic, because in many ways, CakeSpy was a vehicle for my early recovery. 

Operating a food blog helped me be less scared and more curious about food. It helped me come back into the world. But as I progressed in recovery, the continued exposure to food began to act in a different way. I found that it kept the obsessive food thoughts coming my way. It also kept me eating a high sugar diet which honestly was not doing me any favors health-wise, as much as on an emotional level, it made me feel good and loved and treated well. 

I realized that to continue progressing in recovery and as a human being, my focus had to shift from food to actually living life. I don't want food to be the most important thing in my life anymore. I want to eat food so that it can fuel me being awesome. I want my art, my writing, and my relationships to be the most important things in my life. 

So who am I now? 

Now that CakeSpy is over, I feel like part of me has died. I feel like I have also been reborn, so that leaves me feeling like an infant. The world seems totally full of beautiful untapped opportunity in every direction...and yet kind of scary at the same time. 

On the one hand, I don't feel all that different. I am still doing artwork and writing assignments for various clients. I am still keeping busy and doing yoga and collecting unicorns. But on a very basic and pure level, there's been a huge shift in my identity. I'm not Jessie the CakeSpy anymore. 

I'm just Jessie now. 

So who is this Jessie who believes in full recovery and is going to try to find it? Here are some things I know for now: 

I am recovering. I truly do believe in full recovery from eating disorders. I believe I have taken a powerful step toward recovery in shifting away from CakeSpy. 

I am an adult. They say that when you enter recovery from an eating disorder, you are emotionally the age at which your disorder onset. So if I entered recovery at age 30 but my disorder's onset was at age 13, then now at age 36 I'm emotionally a 19 year old. Actually, I think this might be pretty accurate. But now that I've given up my website, I think I'm ready to focus on actually being an adult, as hard as it might be for me to catch up on those "lost" emotional and developmental years. 

I'm a little scared, but I'm strong. Sure, I'm a little scared of this Big Transition in my life. But I'm financially stable, I am talented and funny and cute, and I have good ideas. I'm strong, and I know I'm going to be ok. 

I'm human. I think that one of the biggest transitions is going to be shifting from the cartoon character version of myself to a more human version of myself. Somewhere along the line I think I slipped into the persona I set up for CakeSpy and didn't give myself permission to come out. I'm ready to just be a person. Someone for whom it's not always just cake and sweetness (though let's be honest, it is still largely unicorns and rainbows). 

Oh, and permission to be someone who doesn't have to smile all the time. 

Back to that photo at the top for a second. The other day asked my mom to take the photo to capture the ridiculous face my little pug Olive was making. But then as she was taking the photo someone must have said something to me or something, because I looked away. 

What I see in that photo is a very honest face, and a very real version of me.

That's what I want to continue working toward and letting unfold: the real and true version of me, minus an eating disorder. 

What Becomes of the Open-Hearted?

Changes. Validation. Bigtime who-am-I territory. That's what I'm dealing with right now, sweeties. 

I need to tell you about something that happened in a yoga training I once took. One of the teachers asked the group what it meant to have an open heart. The answers were mostly pretty predictable and optimistic, which is a beautiful thing. But then he changed the course of the question and asked about some of the challenges of having an open heart. 

This is where I spoke up without thinking (this is something I suffer from), and I said "You feel all the world's sharp edges." 

Having an open heart is a beautiful thing. Because honestly, your heart is bigger and stronger than you even realize. But HOLY SHIT CAN THE WORLD HURT SOMETIMES. 

Since last year, I've been dealing with a Big Breakup. Part of me is embarrassed to say it's still deeply affecting me on a daily basis, because well, you should buck up, start dating, get over it! That's what society tells me, anyway. 

I've also dealt with the death of my baby boy pug, Porkchop. Another thing that I had limited permission, societally speaking, to grieve. It's like, people post nice things on Facebook for a little, but then it's all "are you going to get another dog?". Don't get me wrong, this question doesn't offend me (just in case you've asked me that). But how could I get a mere dog when Porkchop wasn't even a dog at all but a little spirit love nugget spawned directly from my heart? 

So, here I am trying to deal with these things, and trying to move on with my life, and to maintain an open heart while I'm still at it. 

But the sharp edges are hitting me left and right. Some examples: 

• Dating is terrible. I don't know the rules. I mean, the last time I "dated" was before the internet even existed (slight exaggeration). I don't know how it works and things that are apparently normal hit me deeply. I am not super experienced. I counted a few weeks ago, and I've now officially been on 19 dates in my entire life. How on earth does this stuff work? 
• Making friends is hard. I've been trying very hard to form a community in my new city, and have really made some great strides, I think. But an observation that I have had is that as an adult, making new friends is difficult. I think this is partially because people are more established, but partially because people's hearts crust over a little bit as they get older. It's harder to let people in. Of course, it does make it all the more worthwhile once you do find someone to share time with in a meaningful way. 
• I need SO much validation. People often tell me that I seem to have it "together". And in a lot of ways I do; I can see how I'm an impressive person. I do cool things, I bought a house, I travel, I'm interesting. I'm very independent. But I still seem to need so much validation. Am I doing good? Please tell me I'm doing good. Like my Facebook post! Love me, love me, love me! Where the fuck does this come from? 
• I still have an eating disorder. I identify as "mostly recovered". But I am not fully recovered, not yet. I recognize that I still have some hurdles to overcome. The above bullet points are big parts of what I need to overcome, or at least find peace with.

Because I recognize that when things aren't going right--when I am not having success in love, when I encounter someone I want to befriend who seems to be immune to my charms (believe it or not, right?), when I don't seem to have the validation I need...when things aren't working out, my mind turns to food.

Everything seems too confusing and hard to deal with, so instead of focusing on that, I'll turn my laser focus to what I have eaten. How many calories have I eaten today? How many did I eat yesterday? Have I walked 10,000 steps yet? Did the yoga teacher talk too much and reduce how many minutes of active asana time I had? 

My eating disorder is in the corner, tempting me. It says, "Jessie, turn off those heart rays, because the world will only hurt you. Put your heart in a box and come back to me, I'll always be here for you. I'll protect you." 

It's tempting. I mean, when my heart is open, I'm a big doofus in the world. I say stupid things, I make mistakes, I overshare, I'm deeply uncool. I'm likely undate-able. Definitely a weirdo. But there's something beautiful in that too, I think. 

So what will keep me from falling back into disordered eating when the world is so painful sometimes? I know I'll sound like someone who does too much yoga, but honestly, I think the answer is LOVE, and FAITH. And keeping my dang heart open!

• LOVE. I need to keep on being my ridiculous, open-hearted self, big mistakes and stupid statements and contradictions and confusion and ALL. Yes, I think one should always try to learn from mistakes and continue improving. But it's also necessary to love myself as I am, too, and look at myself with compassion. 
• FAITH. I need to have faith that it's all going to work out for the best. Uggggh part of me feels so deeply cheesy in admitting this, but I do believe that things happen for a reason. I don't necessarily know if I call it god or the universe or give it a name, but I do believe that I am being guided on a path. Now, this isn't a sort of blind faith that I should leap and the net will appear. I am a little too cynical for that. I think that there are still plenty of decisions and lots of work that I need to take an active part in. BUT I do think that challenges and positive milestones are put in front of me for a reason. I choose to have faith that even if I don't understand them, that they are working in my favor in some way. Not only does this keep me from becoming a shut-in who never leaves the house for fear of the big scary world, but it helps me reject the eating disorder's pleas that I come back to its comfort. 
• KEEP THAT HEART SHINING. Sometimes I fall asleep to cheesy self help videos on YouTube. Yup,  I just admitted it. I forget what the video was, but it was about letting your heart shine, and something that the person said hit me. It was that many of us are scared of shining our hearts forward because we fear getting hurt. So we create armor around our hearts. But really, this is the opposite of what we should do, because if we truly let our hearts shine forward, we'd be surprised to find that they're a zillion times stronger than we think. The idea that our hearts are weak is a myth. If you have the bravery to truly let your heart shine, you'll find that it's like a light saber. It's not that you can't be hurt. Honestly, as I recently told a friend, lately I've felt like my heart is hanging out of my chest with a big ol' bruise on it, and even a gentle breeze freaking HURTS. But in spite of that: you CAN keep going. Put that shit out into the world! 

Ultimately, I know that my eating disorder isn't the answer. Living life, with all of its pain and low lows but high highs...that's where the real experience is. And I'd rather have that then be skinny. Not all days, but more and more days. I'm winning. 

How do you keep your heart open?

It's Pretty Easy, Right?

When you get down to it, recovering from an eating disorder is pretty simple. It boils down to this:

Just eat normally.

Yup! It's as simple as that! The books, the hospitalization, the therapy, they're not necessary at all! You just need to eat normally! Have a hamburger, just eat in moderation! Along similar lines, allow me to quickly cure all sorts of other ailments: 

The cure to alcoholism: Just stop drinking! 

The cure for drug addiction: Just stop doing drugs! 

The cure for anxiety: Just relax! 

The cure for OCD: Just calm down already! 

I hope that you can tell by now that I'm joking. Yes, these solutions are simple, and they are what most people in fact are looking for. However, theory versus practice = different entirely. The clearest and most direct way to be recovered from an eating disorder is to "eat normally". But it's not as easy as that, and that's not the whole story. 

There are all sorts of obstacles and landmines along the way. 

Allow me to go on a tangent for a minute and tell you a personal story. 

For years and years, I restricted calories. If I ate more than the certain "safe" number in my mind, it truly Fucked My Shit Up. OK, most sites about ED recovery don't give numbers, but I'm going to give numbers. At first, my "safe" number was 1700 calories per day. Then it dipped down to 1500 calories per day. Then, for a time, I really just felt better if I hovered around 1200 calories per day. But I would always "round up" calories--for instance, if a label said that an item had 60 calories, in my inner ticker, I'd log it as 100 calories. Just to be safe. 

Not too long ago, Whole Foods began listing calorie counts for all its foods. As it turns out, there was a bakery item I was buying there fairly regularly during my low calorie days. I estimated that this item contained 250-300 calories. In truth, years later I learned that this item contains more like 700 calories. In going back in time, I can see that without realizing it, because of this inconsistency in my count, I actually was eating a "normal" amount of calories. Honestly, the me of that time period would have DIED had I known how many calories I was consuming. It would have been the Worst Thing in the World. And yet when I think back to that time, I always felt hungry and miserable and...lacking. 

Yes: without realizing it was eating a "normal" and acceptable amount. And yet I still had an eating disorder.

This long story is to say: eating disorders are not just about physical hunger, so to expect them to be "cured" by eating a normal amount is total bullshit. 

An eating disorder grows from issues and emotions that are not food. So really, food is not the problem. However, through the disordered eating behaviors that the person in question manifests to deal with said issues and emotions, food becomes a problem. 

So really, to recover from an eating disorder, one does have to start by addressing the food issues, because they're dangerous and not healthy and they are a problem. However, it's just the first layer of recovery. 

From there, you have to keep peeling back layers of those issues and emotions that drove you to disordered eating in the first place. And with every layer, stuff comes up, and you want to turn back to the comfort of letting food be the scapegoat. Sometimes, you do. 

I don't think that the idea of eating disorder recovery is to peel back every layer and just be totally raw and come to a point where you're like "voila! I'm all good now!" 

More, it's to get to a point where you can permit life to be messy and uncomfortable and not turn to food as your only way to deal with it. Or, at the very least, to recognize that this is what you're doing with food. 

Consider, for instance, these very normal reactions to events both positive and negative:

• You have a bad breakup and eat a box of bonbons and drink a bottle of wine by yourself while cry-watching The Holiday. 
• Your niece makes a truly terrible and monstrous cake from a mix, and even though you're not hungry you force yourself to eat it. Because you love her. 
• You are too busy at work to eat lunch, so when you get home, you devour half a bag of potato chips. 

These are not signs that someone has an eating disorder. They're pretty normal yet isolated events that one would hope is not the norm. However, this is to say that eating disorder recovery won't necessary look like "eating normally" all the time, because all of the above things are normal. 

Ultimately, "just eat normally" isn't terrible advice. Because coming to a more accepting and peaceful place with food is important for someone with an eating disorder. However, it's incredibly dismissive advice that shows little understanding of the inner torture that is an eating disorder. It's just recovery 101. Eating a proper amount of calories IS something that can be corrected. But what got you to the point of an unhealthy relationship with food is the real problem. So while your sentiment is appreciated, don't bother saying "just eat normally" to someone with an eating disorder. This thought has in fact entered the person's mind, I promise you, but they have to find their own path there. 

How do you feel when people say "just eat normally"?

What if I Could Love My Eating Disorder?

I have spent a lot of time hating my eating disorder. I get angry about what it has taken from me, how much time it has wasted, what it has done to my body. 

But here's the thing. The eating disorder is also part of me. Whether I like it or not. 

It's maybe like a tattoo that I got that I regret, but it's still there.

Or like a relative you wish you weren't related to. As much as you might go to lengths to avoid that family member, as much as you might make grand gestures of cutting them out of your life, you will always--always--be connected to them.

I'm fortunate in that I don't have such a relationship with any of my relatives. Actually, when I hear that people have cut family members out of my life, it often makes me sad, like "can't you work it out? Can't you accept each other?". Typically not my place to say or ask, but the thought does cross my mind. 

I recognize that my eating disorder isn't a weird uncle or cousin I should make amends with. But at the same time, I wonder if things could change and become far easier if I just decided to accept my eating disorder and allow it in my life...even to love it. 

At this point, dealing with serious disordered eating is happily in the past for me. I'm not severely restricting, nor am I bingeing and purging. However, the fear can still be there with food. There's part of me that is tempted to avoid events and situations where there will be food involved. I still can't eat with an incredible amount of ease. Food is still fraught at times. 

So what if I chose to find these behaviors endearing or amusing? What if I could relegate my still-present disordered behaviors to the territory of a spoiled young child having a tantrum? 

For instance: when my nephew was younger and would have a tantrum in my presence, I felt discomfort, but also a measure of amusement. And while I would get annoyed or embarrassed, I never stopped loving or accepting him. 

What if I could treat these still-disordered habits similarly? For instance, if I'm delivered a plate of food at a restaurant and the fear kicks in -- the bun on this burger is too big! Why didn't I ask for dressing on the side? I wonder how many calories are in this cheese?  --when these thoughts arise, could I simultaneously be annoyed and reject them, yet also accept and love them as part of me?  

I think that the hard part about such a concept is not that it's hard. It's that it's easy. Almost too easy. How radical to simply accept myself--disordered, bent, scratched, imperfect--as a whole and complete and beautiful being, just as I am? To not feel as if I am innately flawed and need fixing?

As Sharon Salzberg writes in Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness,

"Surrendering our fixations, simply being happy, is like suddenly breaking free from confinement. It is as if we were in a small, cramped room on top of a mountain, and all at once the walls have come tumbling down, revealing a panoramic vista. How breathtaking!"

I'm not trying to dismiss the seriousness of eating disorders, nor am I in any way saying that traditional treatment is not effective. However, in reaching a more advanced point of recovery, I do think that there's a point at which one is at a crossroads. Is mostly recovered enough? Or is it worth doing the truly scary thing: embracing, accepting, and in that, letting go of the disordered eating? 

What if the solution has always been right here, inside of me? 

But I Still Want It.

I need to tell you an IMPORTANT THING about me.

I'm 36, and am currently single for the first time in about 14 years. For more than 23 years, I have suffered from disordered eating. When I turned 31 or so, I began to get serious about recovery, and now I can count myself as fairly advanced in my recovery, if not fully recovered (but yes, I do believe in that).

But none of these things are the IMPORTANT THING, they are merely the supporting cast of facts and things in my life.

The IMPORTANT THING is that I want to have a baby. 

Yup, baby fever, I gots it.

Funny thing: I never really wanted to have a baby. Growing up, "have a baby" was never part of my life fantasy: I valued things like living in a big city and being a famous writer-artist more. Even when I was married, I was very much on the fence about having a baby. But when I was 31 or so, things changed. Following the dissolution of my marriage, I got into another relationship fairly quickly. This relationship was pretty important in many ways, but for the purposes of this article, for two reasons. It: A) made me realize it was time to get better and B) made me realize that I really value, desire, and want to have a family. 

I want to have a baby that I can dress up like a little cupcake or unicorn (regardless of gender). I want a little kid who will likely terrorize my life by crying and doing baby stuff first and kid stuff later and teenage stuff even later. 

But, you know, I could also love that currently nonexistent kid and teach him or her how to draw and how to bake cookies and share the beauty of the world that I see and shit. Maybe if I got another book deal I could dedicate the book to my kid. My mom dedicated a book to me when I was young and it was basically the best thing that ever happened to me. You know...joyful stuff. 

I'm sure I have no idea of what it would really be like. People always say that nothing prepares you, right? But don't I deserve to find that out for myself? 

I haven't actually said any of this out loud, publicly, so I feel vulnerable and a little misty just having written it.

Having a baby is on my mind right now, for a few reasons in particular. 

First, the Lack of Baby was a Big Cause of my recent breakup. Disagreements about when, how, if. After several years of such disagreements with no actual resolution in sight, I realized that the hard thing (extricating myself from the relationship) was also the right thing for me. But fuck, it's hard being single, especially after about 14 years in two back to back monogamous relationships. Which leads to #2...

Second, as it turns out, guys are kind of jerks. Maybe I've just been lucky that I haven't been in relationships with jerks before? Or maybe in the last 16 years that I've been spoken for men just all turned into jerks? Or perhaps it's just that they can sense my desperation, the fact that "please love me and tell me you want to have a baby with me right now" is just on the tip of my tongue at all times? Which ties into #3...

Third, I am 36 and while I know that women have babies way later than me (Janet Jackson at 50, for instance, yes I have googled the crap out of this) I can't help but feel like I can actually feel my eggs drying up inside of me and soon my chance will  pass. Not to get TMI, but I was starting to develop a more regular menstrual cycle, but since aforementioned breakup, the cycles have gone back to my anorexic rate: that is to say, nonexistent for the most part, with an occasional brief hello every few months. 

Which leads to the fourth thing...being able to get pregnant. Honestly, I am not opposed to having a baby alone. I don't necessarily relish the idea of going to a sperm bank and not having a partner, but I'd rather do that than not have a baby. However, the lack of regular menstruation/ovulation scares me and makes me wonder if even with a willingness to go it alone...what if that isn't actually scientifically feasible? 

So, with the sum of these four big things going on in my brain related to the IMPORTANT THING, I'm in a little bit of turmoil. I'm not happy to say this, but it has affected my eating disorder recovery. How? 

In a nutshell...

Life feels out of control. I don't like feeling like life is out of control, so I turn to the structure of food (or lack thereof). I have been very strict about mealtimes and I have been counting calories in the past few weeks or so. This feels like a huge letdown because upon moving, I was doing so well. Of course, that feeling of inadequacy only keeps the restriction and hyper-structure going.

I feel not good enough. Recently, I had beautiful moment where a cute guy hit on me when I was on a trip. He was super sweet and I gave him my number. We texted a bit but then he went silent on me. I jokingly (like a cool girl, I thought? obviously not) asked him if I had scared him off and he said "out of sight, out of mind, I guess". Seriously? Fuck you, asshole. I am incredible. And yet...and yet. The not-good-enough-feeling began to poke through. That nasty little seed of doubt. 

FEAR. I feel like it's not going to happen for me. I'm scared. I'm scared that even if I go to the sperm bank my ED past will prevent me from actually successfully conceiving. I haven't made the appointment yet because honestly? I don't want to know right at this moment. The only thing scarier than not knowing is the idea of knowing that it's not going to happen for me. 

So what should I do? Well, I know what I *should* do.

I should sit down, be quiet, and be thankful for all that I have. I mean. I have written books. I have an incredible career that is unlike any other that allows me to have adventures and draw unicorns. I was able, based on the earnings of this highly unlikely career, to buy a house in a major city. I am talented and smart and interesting. 

But then there's that voice. That little yet LOUD voice that says..."But I still want it". 

In spite of all that I have (and I have a lot), it's hard to not focus on the thing that I don't have: a family. The ache is staggering at times. It has caused me to cross the street when I see a pregnant woman or a baby in a stroller because it hurts to much to be close to it. It has caused me to go drive around in my car and scream and cry after friends tell me they are pregnant (this is after I held it together enough to be happy for them of course). Even in the darkest moments of my disordered eating, I never felt too small. Ever. But now, for the first time in my life, I feel too small. I don't want to be thin if it means living without this. 

At this exact moment, I don't know how to feel totally fulfilled. I know how to feel happy and I have many moments of it--don't get me wrong. But I don't know how to feel totally fulfilled without a partner and without a family. It sucks, dude. 

To be completely honest, my heart feels like it is breaking approximately 72 times a day. I feel alternately like a strong woman, like a loser, like a success story, and then like a sad, wrinkled old sack. It's complicated to feel these things and also believe in magic, unicorns, and true delight, but somehow I am able to. We're all complex beings, what can I say. 

Anyhow. I don't know if I necessarily had a big take-away or life lesson to offer with this post. Itwas more that I wanted to be crystal clear honest and share the fact that in spite of so much beauty and goodness in a life, there can still be pain, doubt, and insecurity.

Maybe the takeaway is that yes, we should be happy with what we have, but sometimes it may be important to acknowledge what we want, rather than stifle it and keep it quiet in hopes that it will go away? 

So, yeah, I want to have a baby. I don't know if or how it will happen, and this kind of kills me inside. As it turns out, there's a name for this sensation. As I learned from this article (which is completely worthy of a read), it's called "disenfranchised grief" which is defined as

"the grief you don't feel allowed to mourn, because your loss isn't clear or understood. You didn't lose a sibling or a spouse or a parent. But losses that others don't recognize can be as powerful as the kind that is socially acceptable."

I hope that I don't have to mourn. I hope that I can have a baby. I also hope that I can accept it and not sink into depression and "thin is the only answer" if it doesn't happen. But for now, my hope is that by sharing it here, I can shed light on some of the shame and sadness I feel around it, so that I can at least begin to remedy the disordered-eating setbacks that have come along with the whole situation.  

I love you all so much for reading! 

How has your disordered eating caused you sadness?

The Good Thing Is.

You guuuuyyyyyyz. It's been quite a month, this August. 

First, it was the 10 year anniversary of CakeSpy. It's kind of staggering to even believe it, actually. 

But there was a whole lot more going on than just my business/website's anniversary. I also bought a house in Philadelphia. I also moved to Philadelphia from Asheville, which had been my home for the past two years. I also turned 36, which seems like a pretty Serious Age. 

I'm also still kind of reeling from a Big Breakup a few months ago. I'm getting on with my life but after a number of years with someone there's quite a bit of adjusting to do.

So, here's where I need to share a little secret: while I am an adventurous soul and love trying new things, I don't always do so well with change. 

In a way, I think this is part of why I suffered from anorexia for so long. Because less than being about the food, it was much more about the control. 

To put it in simple terms: the world is a big scary place where people leave and things change and jobs shift and SHIT GOES DOWN. However, in an anorexic world, you can keep things "clean" by controlling what you eat. You can trick yourself into thinking it keeps your life simple and under control. 

Of course, that's total bullshit. It's the worst possible kind of lie that anorexics tell themselves: that they are in control.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Actually, the longer they try to control things, the more rigid they become with food, the less in control they really are, and the less in touch they are with the world around them. 

Anorexia then begins to control the anorexic. 

So, here I am with all of these big huge changes. Many are good. I'm absolutely thrilled at being back in a big city. I've already met some mega cool people, tried a bunch of new food, and gotten lovingly competitive at a number of different yoga classes.  

But still there are the feelings of uncertainty. Like, I have had a dual income for the past few years, can I really handle owning a house?  I've also had someone to call me pretty and watch movies with me and let the pugs out when I haven't been around. Can I really do all of this on my own? Does the fact that I had this breakup, plus the fact that I am divorced, mean that I am flawed in some way and incapable of finding lasting and true love? What's wrong with me? Even though the breakup was fairly amicable, I still kind of feel like a loser at times. 

In the face of all of these ups and downs, it would be so easy to turn back to the tried and true structure of my anorexic tendencies. To count calories and only feel safe if they're at or under a certain number. To avoid socializing so that I can make sure to have time to exercise like a demon. To get really, really thin. To get so thin that I don't feel anything. 

But here's the thing. I haven't done it. I haven't done any of it.

The good thing is:

I haven't done these things. I haven't restricted or counted calories.

When I moved, I was prepared for a little bit of disordered-eating regression; it happens, and usually I find it's a good decision to give myself a little room to accommodate it rather than fight it.

But I've surprised myself by not falling into old patterns. Actually, I've amazed myself by just not having the energy to count calories or adhere to a strict diet. I've been getting a lot more exercise than usual by just doing stuff like cleaning my patio or running up and down my stairs or moving furniture, and when I've been getting hungry, I can't be bothered to worry about counting calories.

For example: the other day I went out grocery shopping and upon the thought of walking home, I was like "dude, I need a cookie". So I bought a cookie and ate it and the walk home was ok and I didn't feel the murderous rage that comes with Deep Anorexic Hunger. 

Or at another moment, my sister left a to-go container of leftover nachos at my house and I ate them the next day because I was hungry and they looked good. No voice screamed inside of my head "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EAT NACHOS BECAUSE THEY WILL MAKE YOU FAT". 

These things might sound like nothing at all to someone who's never suffered from disordered eating, but to an anorexic, this is huge. Spontaneous eating is something I have always dreamed of, and here it is, happening in these unexpected little moments. 

So, anyway. The takeaway I would offer here is that if you are a disordered eater who is going through a time of transition, it can be very tough. It can challenge your recovery and tempt you to go back to old habits. 

Don't take that awful ED bait, yo. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself room to adjust to your new surroundings as the transition unfolds. Sometimes, by offering yourself compassion and space, you might find that you give yourself room to grow in positive directions. 

Have you surprised yourself in recovery? 

What Do You Deserve?

If you were to ask my naughty little eating disorder what I deserve, it would say (imperiously): NOTHING. 

I am not my eating disorder, and I try to ignore this voice. But sometimes--particularly when my self esteem is low or I am going through trying times--it is hard to ignore it. 

Recently I have been experiencing some seriously trying times. First and foremost, I am experiencing a shift in one of the most important relationships in my life. It's messy and complicated. Breakup isn't quite the right word, but I guess it's the most understandable one. For as many ways in which we are ridiculously compatible, our incompatibilities are big ones, and on fundamental issues. 

Nobody is to blame, or maybe everyone is to blame. 

Add to that the fact that I am buying a house in a different city, moving to a different city, working on two different books, and trying to maintain my regular freelance writing schedule. Oh, and a relative of mine is slowly dying. I don't mean for that last one to seem flippant. My grandfather is very old. Some days it seems like he might die before sundown, other days it seems like he might make it through to next year. It's hard, the not knowing. 

Transition is hard. 

It's hard for anyone, I think. But an eating disorder adds a particularly interesting dimension to all of it. My eating disorder has had plenty to say lately. 

Regarding my relationship, my eating disorder says: "The difference between you and people who are in happy partnerships is that they are all good enough. You, on the other hand, are not good enough."

Regarding everything else, the eating disorder says "This is your lot in life so quit complaining. Just start counting calories again so that we can make everything feel nice and structured. I can give you something that you need right now." 

I know that it's not true, but when I'm in bed at night, trying to sleep and not able to...it seems like there might be some truth to my fears, and some truth to the idea that doing things like counting calories could make things feel "right" again. 

As you might have guessed, it shows up in the way I eat. 

Counting calories has never seemed as alluring. I can't control the outcome of my relationship, or my relative dying, or even if I'll continue getting jobs. I can definitely do the best I can, but to think I can control these things is simply not true. 

I can, however, control how many calories I eat. Maybe life is out of hand because my eating has gotten out of hand? Maybe it would all be better if I went back to a strict 1400 calorie diet, or better make that 1200 just to be safe? 

To further complicate things? I'm also having trouble eating. I don't want to eat. But I know I must because not eating would trigger eating disorder stuff. So I do eat. Then I feel like I never want to stop eating. But I know I must because that's not the solution and it won't make me feel good. I get stomach aches when I do eat enough, I get them when I don't eat enough. 

Lately, I've had to make some big decisions about my next steps in life. Moving! A change in relationship! Family changes! It's a lot. But what has required the most strength has not been dealing with the changes. It has been maintaining faith in the fact that I deserve things, and not just any things, but the things I want in life. I need to be very brave to adjust my life accordingly, even if it really hurts. 

It takes bravery to believe that you deserve your dreams. It takes bravery to defy your eating disorder. But I'm going to try to do both. 

I can't say I'll always do it perfectly, but I can sleep at night knowing I am fighting the good fight.

Do you struggle with feeling like you deserve things?